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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4055 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I would strongly suggest to the Chief Minister that next year, if she wants to sustain this argument of openness, each Minister put out a media statement saying where there have been reductions in expenditure. Where there have been increases in expenditure, that has been done. There is a whole list of media statements there. I am looking over Mr Berry's shoulder here and I can see them. There is a whole list of statements saying where there have been increases; but the contrary has not been shown, and it ought to be.

MS TUCKER (10.34): I would like to make a couple of comments as well. I will not make all of them, as I think they have already been stated very clearly by Labor members. So that we are not here until 6.00 am, I will not go over them again. The headline of this response is that the Government has agreed with all but one of the recommendations, but there are certainly, as members have said, quite a few different shades of agreement. We also all know the tactic of agreeing with something by saying you are doing it already. In this response there are about 14 that are agreed, nine are agreed in principle, and a few are noted or agreed in part. There is only one complete disagreement.

There are subtle differences between the positions and, as we know, these subtle differences can mean the difference between action and no action. At one extreme of the spectrum, unfortunately, it can mean, "We will put this right at the bottom of the agenda", or, "Yes, thank you, we have noted that", as in the case of the recommendation about the full-time equivalents for job creation programs, "but we will not do much about it". It was fascinating that, of the two recommendations dealing specifically with environmental issues one was agreed to in principle and one was noted.

In this response the Government has responded to specific paragraphs in the text in the report, albeit in a rather defensive way. I do have to say, however, that it is a step in the right direction to acknowledge other issues in the body of the report. One issue that has been very annoying, and Mr Moore has raised it on several occasions as well, is the fact that the recommendations are seen out of context and there is no attempt to respond to the report in a more holistic way. We just do have to see more work on this quality.

The Government also has to appreciate that the Estimates Committee includes Government members and, as Ms McRae pointed out, other members with different views, and this was a majority report. The recommendations may therefore not always be particularly radical. We did attempt to reach consensus - an unusual thing in this place - and it was quite difficult at times. We were all reserving the right to raise in this place on this occasion and on others, but on this occasion specifically, those issues that we did feel very passionately about, and we will no doubt do that tonight. I think the Government has shown some disrespect, by the quality of its response, for the fact that we did work to reach that consensus. That is all I will say at this point. I will bring up other areas of the Estimates Committee's comments through this debate, as it is a cognate debate.

MR BERRY (10.37): As my colleagues have pointed out, Mr Speaker, this response to the Estimates Committee report has held the committee in contempt. It is most disappointing in that respect because of the fact that the Estimates Committee report was a unanimous report from all of the members who were on it. There was no dissent and it was highly critical of the Government in many respects. Some of the things which occurred in relation to the questions, and answers which were supplied to the committee, are examples of the contempt which the committee was held in.

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